Saturday, November 30, 2013

According to the Palestinian ministry, the Israeli tourism
office in Rome has published touristic literature stating
that “Israel, thanks to a wide range of unique sites such as
the old port of Jaffa, and Nazareth, Jerusalem and Tiberias,
Bethlehem, Capernaum, Masada, the Dead Sea, Fort Herod and
caves near Qumran …” Four of the sites mentioned lie in the
Palestinian territories, but Israel is advertising them as
part of Israel in an attempt to attract Christian pilgrims
from Italy.

Okay, of this list, which four "lie in the Palestinian territories"?

Jaffa

Nazareth

Jerusalem

Tiberias

Bethlehem

Capernaum

Masada

Dead Sea

Fort Herod

Qumran

Bethlehem. Herodian.I guess "east Jerusalem" would be included. But I can't figure out the rest.

Israel had most of the western shore of the Dead Sea, the Qurmran site as well as Masada. Ah, Daoud makes it clear for us:-

While Palestinian diplomatic and public efforts have
focused on Israeli attempts to misrepresent Bethlehem, the
announcement by the Israeli tourism office in Italy also
names other sites that are clearly part of Palestine. The
location of Masada, the Herodian castle and the Qumran cavesare all part of the West Bank. These locations constitute
what Palestinians hope will become their independent state
as part of the universally accepted two-state solution.

This, I would term, is "Palestinian territorial aggrandizement" or, if you wish, "irredentism". It is also part of the mechanism of Palestinianism - the denial of Jewish national ethos and history.

It also indicates that the 1967 lines do not mean a thing because Masada was always within 1967 Israel. As was Qumran. I would think that
at this rate, Tel Aviv is "part of the West Bank".As
we always suspected and as I always said in my debates with Daoud,
"Palestinians" seek Israel's disappearance and that is the true meaning
behind the "stages" policy.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Israeli authorities started rounding up and deporting foreigners
who were working illegally in the Jewish state, as part of a campaign to
enforce new labour laws. The clampdown has made it harder for some businesses to operate.

the Saudi authorities started rounding up and deporting foreigners
who were working illegally in the Gulf kingdom, as part of a campaign to
enforce new labour laws. The clampdown has made it harder for some businesses to operate.

Christopher Gunness, an agency spokesman, said...“Everyone has a right to understand, to study and feel a part of their
history,” he said. “Are we supposed to engage in denial of the events of
1948? The refugee experience is an essential part of Palestinian
identity.”

Fine. As long as the facts are facts.

And moreover, why do Arabs engage in denial, not only non-acceptance, of the Jewish national ethos.?

Denial of the Temple Mount?

Denial of Jerusalem?

Isn't there something wrong in permitting Arabs their narrative while demanding that Jews accept the right of Arabs to deny our narrative?

1. What is Israel's official stand regarding the agreement?2. Why does Israel not declare publicly and firmly that it rejects this injurious attempt?

The answer came a month later from then Deputy Foreign Minister Zev Elkin:

and reads:

Re: Israel's Ignoring of the Agreement between King Abdallah and the PA President as regards the Temple Mount1. The setting of Jordan's position complies with Israel's outlook and contributes to the distancing of undesired elements, including Qatar and other Arab Muslim countries.2. The Jordanian recognition of Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem is not new but has been reestablished by this agreement.3. The agreement does comply with the terms of the special status awarded to Jordan concerning the holy sites to Islam according to the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty, 9 (2), and therefore restricts the Palestinian aspirations (symbolically and administratively) on the Temple Mount.

I had written previously that a military strike on Iran to prevent it going nuclear is now a surety because in chilling out Israel, Obama has assured us that we cannot trust him.That was a bit brunt, but true.

Yaakov Amidror, until this past month the head of Israel's National Security Council, puts it better:

There
is no reason to think that the six powers will have more leverage in
the future than they had before the Geneva agreement. On the contrary,
they just gave that leverage away. After years of disingenuous
negotiations, Iran is now just a few months away from a bomb.

The
West has surrendered its most effective diplomatic tool in exchange for
baseless promises of goodwill. I pray its gamble pays off, for if it
does not there will be only one tool left to prevent Iran from getting a
nuclear weapon. The Geneva agreement has made the world a more
dangerous place. It did not have to be this way.

Attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank against members of the Palestinian population and their property are an extensive, long-term, and worsening phenomenon. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of settler attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties and property damage increased...

I would just like to point out, since I inquired, that the OCHR does not really investigate reported acts in any independent manner and rarely, if ever, sends an on-site team to review and take evidence and challenge the claims made.

I am not saying that there is no violence and I surely condemn all such violence. Nevertheless, what I think happens is that groups like Al-Haq report an act of violence to the OCHR and the OCHR reports it and then Al-Haq, etc. quote as an authoritative source from ... OCHR.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

In 1481, a visitor indicates a large synagogue was serving the community. Rabbinical responsa on issues of observance of laws of agriculture in the 15th century are recorded. A Reb Meshulam of Volterra visited Gaza in 1395-96 and reported houses and fields of Jews and as they were well developed, it is surmisea,

If you searched here, you'd notice, I hope, a gap between 1870 to 1929 (as also here; and also at the Wikipedia entry).I have in my possession a Hebrew book entitled: 40 שנות ישוב יהודי בעזה באר-שבע והקמת חוות רוחמה. It's by Mordechai Elkayam and was published at the end of 1994. It contains the following relevent information regarding the presence of Jews in Gaza after 1860 but also other details I didn't find in the above (such as in 1170, Ovadia Bartanura noted 70 Jewish families in Gaza and 2 Samaritans and that was verified by visits of Rabbi Shlomo of Praga and Meshulam of Voltira but here in Hebrew).In 1882, the Chovevei Tzion branch of Jaffa decided to expand Jewish residency and especially in Arab demographic areas such as Gaza, Lydda and Shchem and the first nucleus was founded in 1886. The income would be based on barley export and a medicinal plant,Schrad. A jerry was constructed in 1910. There was a break between 1916-1918 due to the war.The founding meeting took place during the Succot holiday 1886. Nissim Elkayam and Avraham Haim Chelouche rented large houses in Gaza city.

Another group went south and rented houses on Harawt El-Zeitun. Five months it took for the first families to arrange everything and arrive to settle in until Pesach. They all possessed foreign citizenship, English, Spanish and French, which allowed them the privileges of which other Jews did not benefit. And four (!) synagogues were eventually established divided by the families. By 1890, 30 families were in Gaza.

The book of over 400 pages with pictures and notes and documents is a fascinating read. For example, one month before the May 1921 riots, Sheikh Haj Said El-Husseini informed Haham Nissim that extremists were demanding of him permission (fatwa) to strike out at the Jews in the city. Nevertheless, all left for the few weeks until the Arab rage quieted except for Eliezer and Tzila Margolin and family who remianed in the city, trusting the Sheikh's assurances that they would be protected.

In 1929, on the Thursday before Friday when the outbreak of the violent riots in Jerusalem "spontaneously" occured, a Jewish policeman of Indian origin, approached Nissim Elkayam and Eliezer Margolin and informed them that all the 100 or so Jews residing in the town were to be collected and brought to the Yaffe Hotel. Even the Jewish wives of two police officers, Partrize (phonetic) and Starsky, were brought over. Arabs beseiged the hotel and one broke in but supjuric acid was thrown at him by Dr. Jeker. After Shabbat, all were transported to the train station under the guard of the Sheikh and police and made their way to Lydda and Tel Aviv.

In 1972, when one of the Sheikh's sons, by then a PLO terrorist was hiding in the basement of Radja El-Shawa, Moshe Elkayam convinced Moshe Dayan not to blow up the house in recognition of the father's efforts to protect the Jews of Gaza in 1929.

Israel cites Biblical and historical claims to the West Bank, but the United Nations considers its settlements there illegal and most world powers say they are an obstacle to peace.

Let's make that clear - the "historical claims" are not only from the Biblical period, the centuries after the loss of political sovereignty and military capability, when the Jewish homeland was conquered and occupied and a foreign population transferred itself in.No, they are from the national consciousness of the Jewish people every single day since, whether in prayer, in holiday customs, ritual, texts, literature and rememberance.Those claims are from a constant continuous Jewish presence throught those 1800 years since the Bar Kochba Revolt and the ploughing under of the Temple Mount in the Land of Israel.They are from persistent attempts to return in every single century and not becuase of anti-Semitism but due to love of Zion, from every single land of Diaspora and Exile.And those claims were recognized - and awarded the status of international law - by the League of Nations:

recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;

We need feel no inferiority, no embarassment, no shame - this land if our homeland.Ours by right.^

Mick Davis is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the UK's Jewish Leadership Council and is Chairman of the UK's Holocaust Memorial Commission. He is the founding partner of X2 Resources Limited and recently stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of Xstrata Plc.It goes without saying that he is rich.If he is pompous or not, chummy or not, I do not know. But he has been divisive.In 2010, we read:

One of British Jewry's most senior leaders this week shattered a longstanding taboo by publicly criticising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the peace process, voicing moral reservations about some of Israel's policies, and calling for criticism of Israel to be voiced freely throughout thecommunity. Mick Davis, chairman of both the UJIA and the executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, also warned that unless there were a two-state solution with the Palestinians, Israel risked becoming an apartheid state.

Last week, the chairman of the UJIA called for the diaspora to openly criticise Israel. Now Lord Klams weighs in...Mick Davis's recent comments show a startling lack of leadership and sense...If his general points are off the mark, then Mr Davis's specifics are no nearer to it. It is nonsense to claim that leaders did not speak out...Mr Davis has given Israel’s enemies more daggers to use against us. Others of the ideas put forward by Mr Davis also lack any grounding in reality...the claim that he [PM Netanyahu] lacks 'courage' is preposterous. His political and military career suggest otherwise. What he lacks, like his predecessors, is a sincere and capable negotiating partner...

If someone is going to declare themselves a leader, then they have to take on the responsibilities which such a role brings. First among them is the responsibility to speak the truth. Mr Davis has not done that. He has entrenched lies. No more obvious example could exist than the fact that he has taken up the obscene language of 'apartheid'.To even start to talk in this language, as Mr Davis has done, dignifies a lie and eventually turns a lie into a possibility. This will give incalculable support to the most fevered haters of Israel.Israel is no more going in the direction of apartheid than is Great Britain. But such terms have been created and chosen for a reason: to make Israel a state apart. Only Israel gets spoken about in this way. To join this, particularly as a 'leader', is to give an incalculable boon to those who wish to destroy Israel...

Well, three years later, he's at it again (I guess he doesn't appreciate not be listened to):

A lack of trust that Israel’s political leadership is serious about shaping a viable peace process is unquestionably an obstacle to our defense of Israel. If Israel’s leadership articulated a vision of progress, it would boost the Diaspora’s diplomatic arsenal immeasurably. Without that vision, however, we are fighting with one hand tied behind our back...a reinvigorated, public and sustained expression of a two state vision by Israel’s leaders would arrest and reverse this worrying trend. Without it, we fear for the long-term future of our communities’ commitment to Israel......This new Jewish conversation means Israel and the Diaspora preparing for peace together...We need to re-establish the notion of Jewish peoplehood, developing a shared approach to the challenges flowing from that imperative. Diaspora Jews must not exclude themselves from the challenges Israel faces. But nor should Israel exclude the Diaspora from the search for solutions. A new Jewish conversation, grounded in reality but with a positive vision at its heart, is essential if our unique bonds are to remain strong, mutually beneficial and unbreakable for generations to come.

If I understand Mr. Davis, the two-state solution is the only game in town. Of course, the fact that Israel has adopted that plan and Prime Minister Netanyahu voiced, admittedly to my regret, his support already in 2009 at that Bar-Ilan speech and repeated that policy multiple times, is a fact of which Mr. Davis may not be aware (but I doubt that).I would be more sympathetic to Mr. Davis if he was more fair in relating to the dangers and illogic in a two-state solution - although, truth told, I really can't stand Diaspora Jewish leaders who presume to know what's best for Israel and even their own constituencies all the while these communities disappear through assimilation, lack of confidence in those same Jewish leaders or are weakened educationally, culturally and religiously because these leaders really aren't interested in strong Jewish and Zionist communities. In the UK, they seem to be more interested in a MBE or whatever.But to return to basics.Diaspora-oreintation will not save the Diaspora and weaken Israel (which will further endanger the Jews of the Diaspora). Instead of pointing out how difficult the two-state solution is, he prefers to believe it is workable and desirable. He is not pluralistic but dogmatic. Netanyahu was democratically elected and Davis parlayed his money and business position into leadership.Without confronting the dangers of a two-state solution, Davis is simply not reliable. Without responding to PA incitement, continued terror, the denunciation of the Jewish national ethos, the PA's refusal to seriously engage in negotiations that are not predicated on Israel's complete capitulation and acceptance of existential-threat demands such as the refugees' 'right of return', the division of Jerusalem and the belief that the 1947 borders are next in the roll-back maneuvers they push, Davis lacks credibility while undermining Israel.Incidentally, if Davis and comrades really are unsure whether to support Israel, Evelyn Gordon has some ideas from where to garner increased support for the country.

Well, in 1888, the Reverend James Kean was in Jenin * and in his 1893 book, "Among the Holy Places", p. 214-215 we can read this:

There were Jews there in various historical periods:

First called
Gina, a site of a battle between Egypt
and Het, it is mentioned twice in the Amarna Letters.
It became a Levite city, Ein-Ganim, as recorded in Joshua 19:21. Ishtori Ha-Parhi, who lived in the Eretz-Yisrael in the first quarter of the 14th century, mentions Jenin (Chapt.
11). Josephus (Wars 3:4) notes that "Now as to the country of Samaria, it lies between Judea and Galilee; it begins at a village that is in the great plain called Ginea (or Ginia)" and Ginai is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud (Shekalim 7:2). Jews resided in Jenin during the 16th
& 17th centuries. In
1583, the Polish-Lithuanian Prince Nicholas Christopher Radziwill of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania toured the country and noted
Jews as living there as possibly did a French doctor, Gabriel le Bremond,
who was at Tanin which was a misspelling of Jenin in 1643. Rabbi Yosef Matrani of
Jerusalem had visited the Jewish community there on visits in 1593 and 1602. In
1885, a Jewish blacksmith was in the town and in 1889, a Jewish tailor and two
brothers who conducted business in grains loved there. In 1888, a Jewish shoemaker was in Jenin.

In 1891, the "For Zion" society's representative, Mordechai Edelman, purchased property and land there and eight Jewish familes arrived to take up residence, together with a ritual slaughterer and a melamed. However, an outbreak of an infectious disease the following year caused them to flee to a healthier location.

During the Mandate period, Jews worked in the area on the main road development as well as an army camp during 1921-1922 and lived at a site near the town and when its Tegart police station was built, 1939-1941, some 70 Jewish construction workers lived by the town (in previous years, Jewish policemen were based there at the previous station house such as Yosef Hirsch and Yosef Mabati). On January 27, 1922, Masha and Eliezer Perlson were married the workers' camp outside Jenin. In 1929, two Jewish families joined, Goldstein and Lieber, joined the husbands who were policemen and they were extracted from the town when the riots broke out in August.

In the 1931 British census, four (or 2) Jewish residents were counted (in 1922, there were 7) and in 1936, Ladislas Farago, in his book, notes on p. 22 that 7 Jews were living there among 2500 Arabs. By the way, that census counted 3 Jews (2 males and a female) in Khan Yunis, 1 in Gaza, 1 in Majdal, 2 in Yibne, 5 in Beer Sheba, 28 in Lydda, 5 in Ramle, 135 in Hebron, 1 in Bet Jala, 39 in Bethlehem, etc.

Oh, between 1948 - 1967, there were no Jews in or near Jenin. Why?Arabs ruled the area.

A senior advisor to the Saudi royal family has accused its Western allies of deceiving the oil rich kingdom in striking the nuclear accord with Iran and said Riyadh would follow an independent foreign policy.Nawaf Obaid told a think tank meeting in London that Saudi Arabia was determined to pursue its own foreign and policy goals. Having in the past been reactive to events, the leading Sunni Muslim nation was determined to be pro-active in future.Mr Obaid said that while Saudi Arabia knew that the US was talking directly to Iran through a channel in the Gulf state of Oman, Washington had not directly briefed its ally."We were lied to, things were hidden from us," he said. "The problem is not with the deal struck in Geneva but how it was done."

Netanyahu Scolded Obama in Phone Call on Iran Deal

"The prime minister made it clear to the most powerful man on earth that if he intends to stay the most powerful man on earth, it's important to make a change in American policy because the practical result of his current policy is liable to lead him to the same failure that the Americans absorbed in North Korea and Pakistan, and Iran could be next in line."

That was the message conveyed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to President Barack Obama in a private telephone call Sunday...

So, if
America, land of democracy, is faced with an assertive fundamentalist
regime driven by a theology of political messianism which, among other
things denies Israel's right to exist while seeking an expanded nuclear
program that can produce weapons of mass destruction, and America
relaxes its counter-pressure, is that smart?

And England, too?

British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Israel not to interfere with the emerging deal, perhaps voicing a sentiment shared by Obama and other diplomatic partners.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Okay, President Obama admits Israel can be 'skeptical' over the Iran deal.But can we also be skeptical over the consultations he permits Israel with Washington?Will we know everything that he will know about fulfillment of the agreement's conditions and terms?

Danny Seidmann and I (I think I've informed you already) are old acquaintances and I always seek to treat him as a friend. I have no reason not to.He is an ideological and political rival and yes, seeks my removal from Shiloh.From Peace Now, he moved to Ir Amim and then over to Terrestrial Jerusalem.And now, he got rocked while at Sur Bahir (Baher?). He got stuck in

...a traffic jam in the center of the village [and as he relayed], just as school was getting out.
I didn’t see it coming, but should have: I was a sitting duck. The
rock was probably thrown at point blank range; it smashed the side
window with enough force to leave a deep gash in the back of my head. I
was fortunate: I did not lose consciousness, nor my sense of
orientation.

...a group of prominent residents of Sur Bahir paid
me a visit, expressing regrets...They told me that they had gone today from classroom to classroom in
the schools, telling these young men and women: “...do you have any
idea whose skull you bashed in? Only because of him you are sitting in
this classroom, because he is the guy who got it built.”...But it was also very sad. Worse than sad – it was colonial...The rock...was hurled because I am an Israeli – the occupier. It’s
also possible that it’s because I am a Jew...As long as the occupation
exists, events like this will happen and no one is exempt from them...this ends not when Palestinians behave better, or when our Shin
Bet becomes more efficient. It ends when occupation ends. Until then, I
remain a symbol of that occupation, and not without reason. And no good
deeds, as it were, will redeem me or protect me.

Well, the conclusion is irrational. And maybe he should have been thinking of Arabs as Arabs while amidst Arabs.

As one dear friend wrote to me:

Nothing will knock sense into him.

He got hit in the first place despite his good deeds. And since Jews "got hit" before the so-called 'occupation' that somehow began in 1967, there is a disconnect in his historical fact framework. And I can assure him that is the 'occupation' ends, the rock-throwing will continue just as there was terror from 1920 on.

Even that +972 blogger knows better of:

the dangers of assuming, as Danny may be doing here that violence will
end the moment the occupation does. It’s not realistic for either side,
for nowhere in the world has violence ended.

In the second place, as another friend noted to me,

the entire article is very significant. it shows that they do not care
if more violence results so long as their vision of 'peace" is achieved.
the last sentence is very revealing: increased violence can't deter
progress. how is their progress with more violence?

A third (yes, we share thoughts) conveyed this

The "sacrifices for peace" mentality.

In other, alright, in my words, what was expressed was the 'logic' that Arabs are not responsible for their actions, another version of the "victimization" concept. It's all up to the Jews. Peace efforts are all ours for the Arab is 'handicapped' - by we Jews as Zionists, although I really do not believe Arabs truly make a distinction between Jews and Zionists.

It is time we Jewish Zionists consider taking a better charge of matters.

"I call on the police, the GSS and all other security bodies to catch the persons who threw the stones that struck Adv. Danny Seidmann and to pursue the matter to the full extent of the law and to uproot this despicable phenomenon from out of our midst. We cannot allow ourselves to be reconciled to such behavior amongst us.

"Consistent
with our commitment to consult closely with our Israeli friends...he
wants the United States and Israel to begin consultations immediately
regarding our efforts to negotiate a comprehensive solution,"...

Despite protestations that everything will be okay, many and more* see this agreement as disastrous.

What should be the campaign focus now?

What Benjamin Netanyahu is thinking I do not know. And I doubt he'll tell me.

But what I would suggest is to focus on Obama and to highlight the following points:

a) is he reliable? can he be trusted based on his performance these past few years? how to we track his future moves on Iran?

b) is a proper supervisory mechanism in place? will it work? will it report publicly?

c) based on those reports, does the US and its allies have a military alternative response is infractions and violations happen?

We must emphasize that a strike is the only alternative to this deal's failing. No more deals. No more negotiations.

Instead
of having Israel being pressured all the time, the object is to
pressure the United States and its President (as for its Secretary of
State, if Obama prefers someone else to negotiate, we can leave him
out).

P.S.

But we can name a new term: to be kerryed which means to be circumvented but employed to mislead as a useful idiot.

Dear Yisrael,JewishIsrael doesn't like you. One of their staff suggests you "worship Christians". Others believe you are facilitating Christian missionary work to convert Jews. They even intimated you "found Jesus".What do you respond?

- - -

Let me be brief, in fact, concise:

a) Christian missionary activity must be actively opposed.

b) Christian Zionism must be encouraged.

c)
Christian Zionists must be informed:

work for and with me if you wish because of who we are and
for the fact that Biblical prophecy is being fulfilled by us - but not because of who you might wish us to become.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Israeli skullduggery: planting fake Jewish graves at AqsaIsrael is implanting “thousands of fake” Jewish graves in the land surrounding al-Aqsa Mosque “at the pretext of carrying out repair and maintenance works and new excavations” in a bid to lay hand on Palestinian and Islamic endowment lands, Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage said in a report on Monday.“The Israeli occupation of Jerusalem is committing a very ugly crime on Palestinian lands, on Muslim endowment lands, and that is the implanting of thousands of fake Jewish graves in this site,” Abdel Majeed Mohammad, of the Aqsa Foundation was quoted in report as saying.“What we learned from the people of Silwan is that there is limited number of Jewish graves (around Aqsa Mosque). The Israeli occupation is trying to impose a fait accomplice to control Palestinian endowment lands through implanting 3,000 graves.” “This is the greatest paradox; on the one hand Israel bulldozes Muslim graves in Jerusalem, on the other hands it implants thousands of fake Jewish graves,” Mohammad said. He added that thousands of Jewish tombstones were planted around the mosque to indicate graves, but underneath, there are no bodies, nor skeletons. In January 2012, the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) reported that Israel “implanted 50 unreal graves in the northern part of Silwan district so as to control and seize about 20 dunums of Palestinian land there.”“This Israeli move is aimed at separating the area from the walls of the Aqsa Mosque, where the IOA [Israeli Occupation Authority] also intends to establish a chain of Talmudic gardens and a large Jewish museum in the area connected with the Jewish cemetery in Ras al-Amud and Attour neighborhoods and the settlements, Maale Hazeetim and Maale David,” PIC reported...

In case it isn't clear to you, besides the fake graves being fake, Al-Aqsa is no where near whatever they are referring to, which doesn't exist anyway.Not to mention the destruction of tens of thousands of graves by Arabs between 1948-1967 on the Mount of Olives. And the continuing desecration of same and attacks on visitors to the graves of relatives and famous Jewish figures.P.S. On Silwan's ancient Jewish history.^

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) issued in a press release, the results of the Labour Force Survey July- September 2013:Number of employed in Israel and Israeli settlements about 103 thousand in the 3rd quarter 2013.The number of employed persons from the West Bank employed in Israel and Israeli settlements increased from 96 thousand in the 2nd quarter 2013 to 103 thousand in the 3rd quarter 2013. Of these, 51,100 had a permit, 34,600 worked without a permit and 17,600 employed persons have an Israeli identity card or foreign passport.The number of employees in Israeli settlements 20 thousand in the 2nd quarter and 3rd quarter 2013.61.0% of employed in Israel and Israeli settlements work in the construction sector.The average daily wage for persons employed in Israel and Israeli settlements increased from 172.1 NIS in the 2nd quarter 2013 to 178.9 NIS in the 3rd quarter 2013.

The average daily wage for those working in PA-administered areas in the West
Bank is NIS 88.3 compared and NIS 59.3 in Gaza Strip. In contrast, the average
daily wage for those working for Israelis increased from NIS 172.1 in the 2nd
quarter to NIS 178.9 in the 3rd quarter, over double the wages of those
that work in the PA areas,and a 10% increase in wages over last year. In
PA areas, the wage during the same time period increased only about 1%.

I believe this is the first time that Israeli wages have doubled Palestinian
Arab wages.

This means that about one third of total wages in the PA ruled areas come from
Israeli employers. The impact to the PA economy if there was an international
border between their state and Israel would be devastating, although the World Bank never looks at that statistic when it blames
Israel for the PA's economic woes.

Somehow, over a hundred thousand people manage to travel to Israeli-controlled
areas every day, past all those checkpoints and "apartheid walls" and
guard towers we keep hearing so much about. While they do have to wait in long
lines to enter Israel, it is clearly worth it."

The United States said Friday that a plan drawn up by Morocco
regarding the autonomy of Western Sahara was "serious, realistic and
credible" ahead of a meeting between President Barack Obama and King
Mohammed VI.

"Morocco's autonomy plan is serious, realistic and credible," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "It
represents a potential approach that can satisfy the aspirations of the
people in the Western Sahara to run their own affairs in peace and
dignity."

Saturday, November 23, 2013

His opening paragraph contains a conceptualization I have believed in for years:

Too much of the discourse on Israel is a doubting discourse...the state is too often judged for its viability or its validity..Israel’s problems are too often combined and promoted into a Problem, which has the effect of emptying the Jewish state of its actuality and consigning it to a historical provisionality, a permanent condition of controversy, from which it can be released only by furnishing various justifications and explanations.

And continues

...Israel is not a proposition, it is a country. Its facticity is one of the great accomplishments of the Jews’ history and one of the great accomplishments of liberalism’s and socialism’s and nationalism’s histories, and it is not complacent or apologetic to say so...

But he errs on this:

...Shavit, a columnist who serves on the editorial board of Haaretz, has an undoctrinaire mind...He does, for anyone who remains with Haaretz in the position he does must have a doctrine, one that accepts the demeaning of Israel, spreading lies, misrepresentations and downright calumnies about Israel.

But there is the reality of Israel and it is highlighted in the review:

In such a debate Shavit is splendidly unobliging — as, for example, in this comment about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process: “If Israel does not retreat from the West Bank, it will be politically and morally doomed, but if it does retreat, it might face an Iranian-backed and Islamic Brotherhood-inspired West Bank regime whose missiles could endanger Israel’s security.” It is a formulation that will be unhelpful for activists and diplomats and editorialists, but all of it is true.

And I agree with this Wieseltier a la Shavit observation:

“What this nation has to offer,” Shavit concludes, “is not security or well-being or peace of mind. What it has to offer is the intensity of life on the edge.” The blessing of not being Luxembourg, then. It is a mixed blessing, to be sure — but what other kind of blessing is there? By the measure of the Jewish past, and by the measure of the Levantine present, mixed is quite a lot.

...deemed the Israeli left dangerously unconcerned by the Palestinians'
attachment to terrorism and refusal to accept Israel's legitimacy

and the book

...could serve as fodder for those
looking both to flatter Israel and to fault it. Throughout the book, Mr.
Shavit mulls Zionism's justice, necessity and costs. His conclusions
are often of the yes-but variety.

But this duality, no matter how pro-Israel it is claimed, is undercut as this excerpt from a Shavit interview illustrates:

When I was sent to a detention camp in Gaza in the early '90s, I was
sent there as a guard, and that was probably the most traumatic
experience I had as an Israeli because the fact that I found myself
being a guard — serving my country by imprisoning others — was horrific
for me. I had the time there to sit in that watchtower in Gaza,
to look at the beautiful Mediterranean, to see all the potential beauty
of the country and what the country can be, and to see how these two
people[s] — they were doing terrible things to us as terrorists, and we
were doing terrible things to them, imprisoning them, occupying them,
not giving them the fresh air needed to survive and live properly.

Terror is terrible and Israel's defense is terrible.That is a terrible viewpoint, Ari.

Shavit...cannot resist the final dig that
earns him a place of honor on the Times Opinion page:
“President Obama was right to demand a settlement freeze in the West
Bank in 2009. Now he must demand a total centrifuge freeze in Iran.”
That is, to say the least, an absurd non sequitur. Any
implication that Jewish settlements pose a world danger equivalent to
Iranian nuclear bombs is preposterous. But it comes naturally to Shavit,
who has never entirely shed his nostalgia for “the grand and noble
campaigns of the Israeli peace movement,” nor his conviction as a
student radical that settlements were “a calamity in the making.”

Jewish settlers, he writes in his book, are possessed by “messianic
delusions of grandeur”; they are “a cancer, endangering the entire body”
of Israel. Shavit can only see “a zealot’s fever”; “a
national-religious fervor.” Yet even before the first socialist kibbutz
(Ein Harod, Shavit’s beloved model) was built in “a valley inhabited by
others” (i.e. Arabs) in 1921, settlement of the land of Israel already
defined Zionism. To Shavit, however, religious-Zionist settlement since
1967 explains why “enlightened Jews in American and Europe” – to say
nothing of Israel – are ashamed of the Jewish state.

It cannot get much better than that: blame President Bush and Jewish
settlers for the malaise of the Obama presidency. Welcome to The New York Times, Ari Shavit.

_______

P.S. His great uncle was Norman Bentwich. Shot by an incited Arab nationalist because he was Jewish, Norman sought to defend him. He was active in the Brit Shalom defeatist group.

"Anti-Palestinianism" has become a theological issue, Palestinian Bible
scholar Yohanna Katanacho said at an international conference in
Jerusalem on Wednesday.

He explains:

...some Israeli theologians "strive to establish a particular
reading of biblical history in order to gain political advantage." "Such
reading strategies put (Palestinians) at a disadvantage. They are
perceived as the Canaanites or Philistines," he said, referring to
enemies of the biblical Israelites.

"Some Palestinians are
tempted to play this history game and argue they were in the land before
the ancient children of Israel, as if an ancient historical presence is
the basis for contemporary human rights, including the right to own
your own home that you inherited from your grandfather or grandmother."

American Evangelical scholar Gary Burge continued:

"When
we have a conversation about the Christian church and the land, we have
to be adept at how we use the Bible," Burge said at a panel discussion
on biblical authority.

We are indeed now facing the unthinkable. Not just that Iran is on the
verge of being allowed to proceed to nuclear capability. The really
unthinkable reality is that the enemies of the civilised world are not
just to be found in Tehran. They are also in London, Brussels and
Washington DC.

“Obviously we disagree with it profoundly … It’s inflammatory, it’s
unnecessary, and I think at this moment when we are trying to negotiate
what can and can’t be achieved, the last thing we need is names back and
forth,” Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...“Obviously we don’t believe that anything is served with, you know,
names that challenge everybody’s sense of propriety and justice and
rectitude. We’ve been through this before, as we’ve heard prior, very
disturbing assertions regarding the Holocaust,” Kerry said. “We need to
move away from this.”

But shouldn't it be obvious that doing business with Iran is, well, a very bad deal?

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.